Decay
by AwkwardxAries
Summary: Once upon a time, Rose held the power of all of time and space in her hands and her only wish had been to protect the Doctor, to protect him from the daleks, himself and to protect him from his loneliness. In a parallel universe with her now very human Doctor she is about to confront the consequences of those wishes and realise the truth behind the Doctor's words.


Rose sat in front of her vanity brushing her light brown hair back into a ponytail, glaring at her unblemished reflection balefully. Absent were the wrinkles and grey hairs that would give truth to her age. The passage of time only noticeable in the length of her hair and the steel in her eyes.

Refusing to linger on the mistakes of the past that had long since become irreversible, she pulled herself up from her chair, exiting the room. The corridors of her home were decorated with photos of herself and her husband throughout their life together. She ignored them all as she made her way to the bedroom at the end of the corridor, not wanting another reminder of the youth her husband had lost over the years while she'd remained unchanged.

Pushing open the door to the bedroom she's greeted to the unfortunately familiar sound of machines whirring. She tries valiantly to ignore what the machines represent, the purpose they serve.

She pastes a friendly smile across her lips for the sake of their visitor, but every muscle is fighting against the lie she's trying to tell.

"Thank you, Doctor Simmons. I trust everything is well?"

"As well as can be expected at this stage. He's awake at least."

Her smile falters slightly, the truth never becomes less painful no matter how many times she's forced to confront it. Her gaze falls away from the doctor, falling onto his patient, almost without her permission.

"Thank you, for your help. Gloria will show you to your room and you'll be paid at the end of the week."

Accustomed to her behaviour by now he nods gathering his things, recognising that she'd like a moment alone. He smiles at Gloria as he slips from the room to his temporary residence, his exit going unnoticed by his employer. Her gaze still firmly fixed on his patient, as she drifts closer to him as if pulled by some unseen magnetic force.

Rose fusses with the empty glass on the bedside table, filling it with water in lieu of preparation. She finally takes her seat by his bedside once her task is complete. Her gaze falling back to her husband, mentally she counts each and every wrinkle on his face. Wishing once more she could share her old age with him, as they'd promised to each other all those years ago.

But Time was a cruel, cruel mistress. She took and she took, leaving only ruins and decay in her wake. Even her gifts were cruel tricks wrapped in a pretty bow to distract you from the pain and suffering they would inevitably bring as you wished you too could join the ruins.

She'd given Rose eternal youth but forced her to watch her loved ones wither away as penance.

And sitting across from the shadow of the man that used to be her husband, she feels part of her crumble. Oh, how she wishes she could toss her gift back in her face. But she can't and so she must live on, carrying the weight of all those she has lost.

Her husband's eyes flutter open with great difficulty, she banishes such cynical thoughts under his gaze. She smiles at him almost without thought, he'd always managed to pull a smile from her.

His gaze is unfocused and confused, forcing her to confront reality. She already knows what he's going to say even before the words fall from his lips, already prepared to have her heartbroken by him again.

"Who are you?"

Her smile falters, her eyes brimming with tears that she will not let fall. She takes a deep breath, steadying herself so as to ensure her voice doesn't tremble.

"I'm Rose, I'm your wife." She tells him gently, patiently, as she does every time he asks, pretending it doesn't kill her a little inside every time.

"Wife? You must be confused dear, you're far too young. Why you look closer to Susan's age."

Her heart stutters slightly, just for a moment. Her smile is a small thing now, twisted by pain, as she nods.

"I know." She says. I know, but you don't, not anymore, she thinks.

Alzheimer's disease the doctors say. Rose knows better. Centuries of memories crammed into his head, his mind ravaged by age unable to tell his lives apart from the fragments. In the end, it was him that was too human.

Sure he'd lived longer than most humans did in this time period, but he aged just as they had. Just as he'd promised her he would on that beach so many years ago. She doesn't resent him for it, instead, she finds herself yearning for the grey hairs and wrinkles. The jumbled memories as everything blurs into one, the scars and the callouses. The signs that she'd lived a full life. But there's nothing.

Rose shakes her head, hoping the hopeless wishes will dissipate with the movement. She reaches for the glass she had set to the side, raising it to his lips, she helps him drink.

Her hands tremble around the glass that now sits in her lap once he'd decided he'd had enough. She looks around the room that used to be theirs, now filled to bursting with life support machines, all monitoring her husband's slow decline. No space for her anymore. Just the same as there's no space in his memory for her.

Rose often wonders if she'd been a different person if her life hadn't unfolded the way it had if she would feel bitter about that fact. Sometimes she wishes she did if only to distract for the chasm in her chest, anything to distract her from the pain of her loss.

Pete. Mum. Tony. Friends. Colleges. Acquaintances. And now her husband was to join the long list.

She almost understood why the Doctor had walked away before he could watch the people he cared about age. Almost. Because she'd rather savour every second she could with them and suffer their loss than walk away even for a second.

She knows she probably has nieces and nephews somewhere but Tony had never been comfortable with her ageless lifestyle and had kept her at arms reach. Never even telling his wife he had a sister. Only meeting with her away from their knowledge.

Logically she understood, it was too confusing and painful to have to accept that your older sister was going to outlive you. That for some reason the universe had chosen that she could experience eternity when no one else could. It still hurt.

She recounts memories of their life together before and after he'd become human. Just as she always does on the days when he doesn't remember her and yet is still willing to listen.

Some days are better than others. But she'd take the worst days over having to lose him. Privately, she can admit to herself that she will let him go if he asks her to. No matter how much it will destroy her to do so.

* * *

Rose stares into the mirror tracing a line done her unmarred cheek with a single finger in confusion. She could have sworn her cheek had gotten on the wrong side of the Baleswarth's talon on today's field mission. And yet. Nothing. Not a single mark, just as it had been this morning.

She must have been confused she argued with herself.

The Doctor hadn't come with her today so she'll just have to rely on physical evidence. Unmarked and unharmed. Pete will be pleased at least, he hated filling out the copious amounts of paperwork that came with an injured field agent. And they were definitely going to need him to keep them in his good books if they were to request a month off for their honeymoon.

It was the only part they hadn't finalised yet. Knowing that Rose could always ask her mum to sway Pete if needs be. A little underhanded, maybe. But they'd missed the travelling and overseas missions just weren't quite scratching that itch anymore. Neither wanted to acknowledge that Earth would be too small to contain their wanderlust one day. But that day wasn't today.

She spun her engagement ring with a smile. A habit she'd developed ever since he'd given it to her, at least it distracted her from biting her nails. A definite plus in her mother's books, who was always lecturing her about getting a manicure. To which Rose always shut down by reminding her mum that her line of work didn't exactly support perfectly manicured nails.

She left the bathroom still staring at the ring she was spinning. The Doctor was working overtime in the lab wanting to complete whatever little project he was currently working on. If Rose remembered correctly it was supposed to be a translator of some sort. She hadn't been clear on the specifics, lost in the technical jargon.

Alone in the house - aside from the maid her mum had insisted upon, Candice - Rose let her mind wander. She still remembered the day he'd proposed. They'd been together just a little over a year in this universe, it had been rough in the beginning. Getting the Doctor settled into his new pedestrian lifestyle, trying to get used to living with someone else again (she'd jumped out of her skin multiple times when she'd walked into a room only spot him, forgetting she wasn't alone), trying to find time to talk between their schedules, getting used to having a schedule and the carpets and curtains that came with being Earthbound.

But there was an ease to their relationship that had been there since he'd been all leather and blue eyes. They worked perfectly in tandem, so in sync that they didn't even need to think about it. It made them the perfect team on the field as well as at home.

They'd gone to Barcelona - the city, not the planet - to escape some of the monotony of life. Led on a beach under a starry night sky as the Doctor pointed out similar constellations to their universe as well as new ones. When suddenly mid ramble the question had slipped out.

Tucked against his side, Rose had craned her neck to look up at him.

"What?" She'd asked through a laugh, certain she'd misheard because it was just simply too human, she didn't think he would ever suggest marrying her and if he did definitely not by human customs.

But his face was flushed all the way to the tips of his ears as he shifted nervously in the sand under her gaze, his singular human heart pounding out an irregular rhythm. And beneath a star-filled night sky in Barcelona, she realised he would. He would marry her by human customs or any customs that she allowed.

A slow grin spread across her lips, her joy unable to be contained.

"I said, will you marry me?" He said slowly, more fearful of her rejection now.

"Yes. Of course, I'll marry you. I promised you forever, no matter how long it is."

His nervous exposition bled away making room for joy. He moved suddenly, pressing her against the sand as he kissed her. Both of them grinning too hard for it to really count as kissing.

The memory faded as Rose came to stand beside one of the many pictures from that trip. It was one of the happiest memories she had in this universe, but she knew it wouldn't be the last. They had forever together.

* * *

Claire was excitedly babbling about the latest alien race Torchwood had come across as they walked through the too white walls of the organisation. Something about the race possessing 'stopwatch ageing'. They aged at a normal pace but at any moment they could simply stop ageing remaining their chosen age until they were killed. Another aspect Claire had delighted in explaining, as they became virtually immortal upon settling on an age, then once they'd lived as long as they wished it was up to their family to help them into the afterlife.

The thought made Rose nauseous, as she recounted all of the incidences over the last couple of years when she left missions certain she'd been injured only to find nothing upon coming home.

"Excuse me." She interrupted Claire, with a polite smile darting into the ladies bathroom.

Stumbling over to the sinks, she sunk against the cool granite of the countertop, letting the cooling surface ease her nausea.

Is that what would become of her? Turning to her family to find some sort of escape? Not that she even knew conclusively that that was what was happening.

Okay so maybe cuts and bruises seemed to miraculously disappear, and any wounds she'd sustained were gone by the day's end but that didn't mean anything. The Doctor once told her that travelling through time gave you a stronger immune system maybe this was under the same umbrella.

A small part of her knew that couldn't be true, her husband came home injured more often she'd like to admit and if either of them were likely to have quicker healing it would be him with his half Timelord biology. But still, she clung naively to the hope, she refused to hurt him this way, by how cruelly the tables had turned.

There had to be another explanation.

* * *

There wasn't. Rose now knew that.

They'd been on a particularly difficult field mission with a rather aggressive race known as Klawdons. The Doctor had been wrestling to get the weapon off of one before they started shooting while Rose had been engaged in hand-to-hand combat trying to distract the being long enough to keep their hands away from their gun.

She knew the second she hadn't been successful in that particular venture when she was trapped under their weight one moment, only to have the muzzle of their weapon pressed against her chest the next.

She could hear the Doctor screaming in the background, but time felt as if it had frozen around her, she couldn't move. She felt the fiery shock of the weapon being discharged into her chest, but a second passed and she remained conscious. The pain was even dissipating.

The Klawdon looked startled at her reaction, or lack thereof, using their surprise to her advantage. She twisted the weapon from their grasp bring the butt of it down on the side of their head, rendering them unconscious. Tossing the dead weight aside, she threw herself back into the battle, forgetting about the whole thing.

It was only later when the Klawdons were being detained and her husband was stood before her, hands gripping her biceps as he checked her over with an intensive eye, that she remembered she should have died. But more importantly, that he would have had to watch her die.

"I'm fine." She said gently, aiming for placating, as her hands circled around his wrists.

"You were shot. I-I-I saw you."

"I know." She took one of his hands placing it over her still-beating heart, "I'm fine." One hand holding his to her heart, the other came to rest on his jaw as she made him look into her eyes to convince him of her words.

He crushed her to his chest in a frantic embrace.

"I thought I'd lost you." He mumbled into the crook of her neck.

Tears filled her eyes at the pain in his voice, as he likely remembered the time not so long ago when they'd been separated. Her hands stroked up and down his back comfortingly as she too clung to him.

"I promised you forever, you're never gonna lose me again." Her words filled with confidence she didn't quite feel.

She was still a little shaken by the whole thing honestly but she wasn't going to tell him that quite yet so soon after he'd almost had to confront losing her again.

* * *

Weeks passed before they had any answers. Her telomeres had stopped shortening and in fact, they hadn't shrunk in quite some time. She wasn't ageing. And yet apparently still healing but at an accelerated rate, so quickly that she could no longer die. Almost as if she was being kept in stasis, unable to move forward from a certain point.

The Doctor said it was impossible and vehemently ignored the results for days. Rose watched him pace back and forth, shouting about the impossibility to himself, feeling useless. Unable to think of any ways to help him, she knew why he was so against this.

On the third night when Rose was soundly tucked up in bed, wondering if her husband was even going to join her tonight or if he was going to continue looking for answers that cannot be found, he crawled along the length of the bed. Disturbed from her dozing she couldn't help but be glad he'd joined her, she pulled back the covers as he continued to shift before settling against her back.

"I'm so scared, Rose." He confessed into the darkness, his voice barely above a whisper as he pressed his head into the curtain of her hair. "I never wanted this for you, I'm so so sorry." His voice breaks slightly as he stumbles over his words.

Rose turns around to face him. Placing both hands on either side of his jaw she lifts his head up to meet her gaze.

"This is not your fault. You have nothing to be sorry for." She told him seriously, emphasising her words carefully.

"Everyone you've ever loved or known you're going to have to watch them age and die. You don't even have a time machine to run away in. I've trapped you here, I should have been more careful, how can you say this isn't my fault." His head dropped back down to his chest, his next words almost lost to the darkness. "Everything I've done has lead to this."

"Don't you dare. This was my choice. Yes, I would never have become Bad Wolf if you hadn't sent me home but that was my choice to make I could have had a quiet life as you told me to but I didn't. I wouldn't choose otherwise not then and not now. I had an amazing life on the TARDIS and I have an amazing life here with you. I wouldn't trade either. We'll figure this out, we always do."

"I hope so." He mumbled quietly.

Rose stroked his hair comfortingly, not wanting to further his guilt by giving her agreeance. Her internal monologue not even half as confident as the impromptu speech she'd given only seconds before.

She so hoped they'd work this out, just as they had everything else. No matter how impossible, the impossible was where they did their best work after all.

* * *

She pulls herself free from her memories, looking down on her husbands sleeping figure. Standing slowly, so as not to disturb him, she pulls the blanket up to his shoulders and presses a kiss to his weathered forehead. She walks from the room silently, she stops suddenly at the doorway, unable to stop herself from casting one last look at him. Just one last look to know he was safe, in the hopes that this time it would be the medicine she needed to cure her wounded soul and banish the nightmares that were sure to follow her into unconsciousness.

Rose wishes she could still lie to herself that there was still some hope left. But she didn't have a time machine and she'd grown up significantly since she was that naive shopgirl that ran away with an alien, she could admit to herself that their time together was coming to a close.

It seemed some things truly were impossible.


End file.
